On Wednesday morning, a series of articles started appearing across the English media claiming that Manchester United were interested in both Alessandro Florenzi and Elseid Hysaj.
The two right-backs, who we can only assume would be replacements for a departing Matteo Darmian, were mentioned by Il Mattino in their Wednesday edition, which was then picked up by English websites covering Italian football.
This then led to others picking up on the story, all referring to Il Mattino as the source of the story, but there’s a big problem in all of this: they aren’t.
As tends to be the case when a story like this comes out, we go and double check it, and lo and behold, Il Mattino, a Naples based newspaper, actually credit Shoot.co.uk for the Elseid Hysaj and Florenzi story.
So, we decided to have a look on the English website, where we found this article from October 18th with the headline “3 Serie A players who could follow Paul Pogba to Manchester United in January”.
The slideshow article is merely a suggestion of players, nothing concrete, and even includes Juventus’ Paulo Dybala as an option. 
Shoot never actually mention a fee, because they’re just suggestions, but Il Mattino throw in a €30m fee mention in there, one they say ‘would not be difficult to say no’ to.
To summarise, we have a Naples based newspaper talking up their local club’s ability to refuse big offers from the Premier League (they also mention Kalidou Koulibaly, Lorenzo Insigne and Amadou Diawara) using a slideshow suggestion article from an English website.
Sorry, but the Hysaj and Florenzi to Manchester United story is a no go for now.
